# outlandish

> English word · Adjective · IPA /ˌaʊtˈlændɪʃ/ · frequency rank #26,539

## Definitions
1. Of or from a foreign country; not indigenous or native; alien, foreign.
2. Appearing to be foreign; strange, unfamiliar.
3. Greatly different from common experience; bizarre, outrageous, strange.
4. Of a place: far away from where most people are located; in the middle of nowhere, out of the way, remote.

## Etymology
The adjective is derived from Middle English outlandisch, outlondish (“foreign”), from Old English ūtlendisċ (“foreign; strange, outlandish”), from Proto-West Germanic *ūtlandisk, from Proto-Germanic *ūtlandiskaz, from *ūtlandą (“(adjective) alien, foreign; relating to outlying land; (noun) foreign land; outlying land”) + *-iskaz (suffix forming adjectives from nouns with the sense ‘characteristic of; pertaining to’). *Ūtlandą is derived from *ūt- (suffix meaning ‘beyond; external to, on the outside of’) (from Proto-Indo-European *úd (“away; out, outward; upwards”)) + *landą (“area of ground, land”) (from Proto-Indo-European *lendʰ- (“heath; land”)). By surface analysis, outland + -ish. The noun is derived from the adjective.
Cognates
* Danish udenlandsk (“foreign, non-domestic”)
* Dutch uitlands (dated) (now buitenlands (“foreign, non-domestic”)), Dutch uitlandig (“absent from the home country”) (now chiefly Suriname)
* Faroese útlendskur (“foreign, non-domestic”)
* German ausländisch (“foreign, non-domestic”)
* Icelandic útlenskur (“foreign”)
* Swedish utländsk (“foreign, non-domestic”)

## Common misspellings (15)
`otulandish`, `oultandish`, `outalndish`, `outladnish`, `outlanddish`, `outlandihs`, `outlandishh`, `outlandissh`, `outlandsih`, `outlanidsh`, `outlanndish`, `outllandish`, `outlnadish`, `outtlandish`, `uotlandish`

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/outlandish